New Westminster's Official City Plan > Environmental policies in OCP Colten Kamlade Staff Reporter he City of New Westminster is hosting a party on October 30 in celebration of their new Official Community Plan (OCP). According to the city’s website, the plan has been in the works for a long time. “After 3 years, 15 open houses, booths at 7 community events, 1 workshops, 5 online surveys, numerous meetings with community members, 36 presentations to City committees, and 18 reports to Council, we have reached the end of the update of the Official Community Plan!” The OCP webpage reads. The document is over 200 pages long, and its policies cover community and individual well-being, culture, economy and employment, energy, emissions and climate change, environment and natural areas, hazard management, heritage, housing, parks and recreation, public realm and urban design, transportation and accessibility, and utilities, services, and infrastructure. A large section of the document is dedicated to environmental policies, which include a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. “The City’s target for 2030 is to reduce community-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 15 per cent,” the OCP document states. The City plans to do this by reducing the use of environmentally damaging transportation. “The City’s Master Transportation Plan and Community Energy and Emissions Plan endeavor to improve transportation choices for local residents while reducing transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions,” the document continues. The OCP also states that they will be implementing measures to ensure buildings are more energy efficient. “The City can influence energy use and GHG emissions in the built environment by establishing policy direction, zoning requirements and development permit guidelines for new buildings with respect to energy efficiency, and it can inspect buildings for compliance,” the document states. The City also plans to support renewable energy. “Identifying viable opportunities for neighbourhood renewable energy systems in the city is one of the implementation priorities from the Community Energy and Emissions Plan,” the OCP document reads. More specifically, the document claims that “a renewable district heating system that will serve Royal Columbian Hospital, as well as larger residential and commercial buildings near Sapperton and Braid SkyTrain Stations and along East Columbia Street, is in the initial stages of implementation.” Furthermore, the OCP is planning on focussing on improving and protecting green spaces. “The City aims to preserve and connect open space and environmentally sensitive areas and to maximize opportunities for community members to access and engage with the natural environment,” the documents states. It goes on to claim that the city plans to “protect, enhance and connect natural habitat areas and ecological systems, including the Fraser River, Brunette River, Glenbrook Ravine and large treed parks.” Photo by Analyn Cuarto Photo of Christina Hendricks via Event Brite Students could start saving on textbooks with Open Access Week > to host Open Access Week events every day this week Chandler Walter Editor-in-Chief ouglas College is working to keep some cash in the pockets of students. The College is a successful recipient of an Open Education Resource (OER) grant from BCcampus, which will lessen the burden of textbook costs on students, according to a July 13 release from BCcampus. The school will also be participating in International Open Access Week, with events being held every day of the week from Monday, October 23 to Friday, October 27, spanning both campuses. According to “A Very Brief Introduction to Open Access” from the International Open Access Week website and written by Peter Suber, “Open Access is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.” “What makes it possible is the internet and the consent of the author or copyright-holder. OA is entirely compatible with peer review, and all the major OA initiatives for scientific and scholarly literature insist on its importance. Just as authors of journal articles donate their labor, so do most journal editors and referees participating in peer review.” Douglas College will be hosting six events over 5 days this week, from ua.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday, at the New West campus on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and at the Coquitlam campus on Tuesday and Thursday. There will also be an Open Access Week event from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the New West campus on Friday. Thursdays event will be called “What’s Open About Open Pedagogy?” and will be hosted by UBC professor Christina Hendricks. She will explain what open pedagogy is, and why it should be considered as “open,” according to the event's Eventbrite website. Another local professor to contribute to the discussion around open access is Douglas College’s own Jennifer Barker, who is featured ina video posted by BCcampus. In the video, she explains an incident in which a student had answered questions to a test that raised some red flags because student’s answers were “sort of related, but way too specific.” It turns out that the student couldn't afford the textbook, so they were studying instead from Wikipedia. This spurred Barker towards becoming an advocate for open access, so students could get the information they need without paying the steep textbook prices. “Ultimately, at the end what | would like is a single resource that I can hand to my incoming students coming into our anatomy and physiology courses that I can say, ‘this is the course,” Parker said in the BCcampus video.